Hi Amalya,
Welcome to your personalized Grit Lab Report!
We will go week by week, reviewing everything you have told us through Poll Everywhere.
We hope this will help you reflect on what you have learned and experienced during Grit Lab.
Important note!
Sometimes, you may not have been able to respond to all polls.
If the data for one of the polls is missing, the automatic report will display NA, or ““.
Okay, let’s get started!
The first half of Grit Lab delves deep intp the passion facet of Grit.
We like to call it Choose Easy, because we think gritty people pursue what they enjoy.
Putting it graphically, gritty people tend to pursue the intersection of these four circles.
The first time we met, you told us where you were on the grit rubric.
Regarding passion you picked Stage 3: I’m actively figuring out what my interests are by trying one or more of them out in some way .
Regarding perseverance you picked .
As you know, grit grows, so don’t worry if you are not yet where you’d like to be in your grit journey.
Hopefully, this class will help you become grittier each day.
In week 2, we looked at your interests.
Interest is an emotion, and it is the opposite of boredom.
Your interests are the activities or subjects that spontaneously grab your attention.
Trying things out and seeing how you feel is the best way to refine your interests.
In week 3, we studied values, your beliefs about what is important.
You said your top three values were benevolence, tradition, and self-direction.
You wrote a “This I Believe” essay, and here’s where you located it on Schwartz’s value taxonomy.
When we talked about strengths in week 4, you said your personality strength was agreeableness.
You said your top three talents were analytic, kinesthetic, and spiritual.
We then talked about goal hierarchies.
You said you about your top-level goal.
We discussed self-concordance, or how much a goal aligns to your deeply held values and beliefs.
A goal you said you will be pursuing for the next six months is to .
Here is how self-concordant that goal was:
Don’t worry if your self-concordance for that particular goal is low.
It might mean that you need to reframe that goal in a way that makes it more relevant to your deep self, or change it!
Remember that self-concordance is goal specific, so other goals might be more self-concordant.
We then transitioned to the second part of Grit Lab:
Work Smart
In week 6, we looked at goal setting and planning.
You WOOPed!
For your Wish, what you wanted to accomplish, you said Drink 2 water bottles daily .
For your Outcome, what would happen if your wish came true, you said Feeling energized and positive! .
For you Obstacle, what it is within you that stands in your way, you said Not being in the mood .
For your Plan, you created this when-then plan to achieve your goal: when I sit down to study, I will place my water bottle on the desk to drink .
Whether you changed your WOOP or stuck to that one, here’s where it landed between being a total fail, and going exactly according to plan.
And here’s how much you learned
These goals are hard, and despite our best efforts, our plans can fail.
The important thing is that you learn something along the way!
In week 7, we talked about deliberate practice.
You shared you’ve done daily practice in gymnastics! .
We learned that deliberate practice requires a challenging, hyperspecific goal, maximum concentration, instant feedback, and is often done alone.
In week 8, we discussed feedback.
Even though feedback can be hard to take, it is often the key to improve. So if you want to improve, seek it actively!
You said you felt appreciative when receiving critical feedback, and appreciative when receiving positive feedback.
We then turned to learning about stress.
In week 9, you reported feeling a lot of stress in your life right now, the primary source of it being my family in israel .
We also talked about adversity and failure.
Although related, adversity and failure are different:
Adversity happens to us, whereas failure is something for which we are generally more responsible.
However, how we interpret stress and failure matters…
Interestingly, research has found that people who believe that stress can facilitate learning and growth experience enhanced performance, well-being, and health.
And failure—not achieving a particular goal—can be interpreted as “I’m learning!” and lead you to look for the lesson in that experience.
We closed the Work Smart section of the class by talking about habits.
Throughout the semester, you practice habit building using your Build-A-Habit Guide book.
You describe the habit you chose as Health .
Whether you were successful in habit building or not, this is how much you learned.
Finally, what good is grit if we do not dream for others?
So, we transitioned to Paying it Forward.
In week 10, we looked at mentors: role models that take an active role in your growth.
Hopefully, your mentor was authoritative, being both supportive and demanding.
Here’s how you described them:
You also wrote a gratitude letter to .
In one word, you said it made you feel content .
One way of paying it forward is having a prosocial, beyond-the-self purpose. Here’s how you responded to items assessing that.
… and so quickly we arrived at the end of the semester.
Here’s how your mood varied over these weeks.
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Do you notice any patterns? Is there anything that correlates with your mood?
Here you can scroll through all the quotes you wrote to summarize each class.
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| Happiness is IN the pursuit. |
| People who are open to experience are able to feel confusion and interest simultaneously. |
| The fact that I should try to find a clue hidden in all three of my Careers A B and C that can inform me about what career would be a great fit for me |
| When you listen to something or learn something, think about how it is relevant to YOU. |
| Penn is a leadership school |
| Quality of practice and strategy are better than brute force |
| The process model! |
| trying to do work on your computer is like trying to eat a salad in the middle of a bakery |
In the final class, we looked back to everything we’ve learned together and to how our passion and perseverance evolved during this class.
Here are the comments from your Grit Lab Teammates:
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| Kevin Wang |
| Genuineness and warmth has radiated from Amalya’s every word and action this semester. It is evident to see just how much she cares about the people around her, from her faith community to her family to even strangers. Furthermore, Amalya is always extremely attentive and empathetic to all positions and opinions that she hears, lending an open and respectful ear while simultaneously being able to add insightful comments that reflect the issues spoken at hand and add to the conversation as a whole. I can tell that Amalya’s kindness and warmth reflect through her entire being – whether it’s the loving way in which she talks about her brother and family, her supportiveness of her community and her friends, or the welcoming way that she greets both friends and strangers and incorporates them all into conversations. When speaking with Amalya, I always feel heard and welcomed in conversation, which is a skill that is difficult yet crucial in everyday conversation. Likewise, through our interactions I know that Amalya’s actions are always done thinking about those she cares for – whether it's the care that she took for her community in a time of tragedy or her support for the campers she was a counselor for during her time in Israel. I know that Amalya will, like she’s done throughout our time in Grit Lab, continue to uplift those around her and remain as an empathetic, supportive member and leader of all teams that she’s in. I was lucky to have gotten to know her a little better throughout this semester, and I’m excited to see her more in the news in the future, where I’m sure she will have gained deserved attention for being the positive and warm force for change that she is.
Likewise, this warmth was reflected clearly in her Discovery Project about yoga. Seeing how Amalya not only pursued her own project and interests, but actually dedicated it to helping out suffering members of her community in a time that they needed it the most was extremely inspiring to me. I also hope to someday do good to the community around me with the work that I do, helping them heal or pushing them forwards, and seeing Amalya being able to actually apply that to real life was unbelievably amazing to see. The presentation was amazing, but the message of it all was even better. I know that Amalya will continue to do such amazing and selfless things for the people around her in the future, and I look forward to hearing about more of your group yoga lessons!
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| Leigha Jackson |
| Amalya, I’m so happy we got to know eachother through this class! You were always such an awesome energy to have around. I know this semester must have been difficult because of recent world events but you always remained such a positive light and I really loved getting to chat with you every week and learn more about you! You are going places and I’m excited to see all you accomplish!
As for your discovery project, I was especially inspired by your yoga class you offered when you were home. I think it speaks so much to your character and how you are a light for others. I think that no matter what you pursue in life you should lean into your strength of being able to make others feel happy. |
| Phoebe Hoffman |
| Amalya, I really appreciate the value you have added to our group discussions. You are extremely supportive of all of your team members and it really shows. You listen carefully to others and ask follow up questions, making us feel welcomed and safe to engage with you. You think critically about the prompts, and add excellent insights to our conversations!
You had a great presentation and spoke very eloquently. It was awesome to hear about your journey and what you gained from your Discovery Project. I also thought your slides were great and added an excellent visuals to your presentation! |
We hope you have emerged from Grit Lab a little grittier than you started.
Do you want to see how your grit rubric changed?
Drumroll please…
Don’t worry if the rubric doesn’t yet reflect growth. It is only a coarse measure that cannot replace your own self-reflection.
In any case, grit is not built in a day…
…remember that progress is never smooth…
…so stay passionate and persevering in the lifelong quest of choosing easy, working smart, and paying it forward.
With grit and gratitude,
Angela and the Grit Lab team.